Page 65 of Let Me
I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
He’s not laughing now. “Don’t play stupid with me, Riley. That’s not really your style. I know Jack was never enough for you, but I thought I might have been. Or maybe that fuck in the video? But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You just couldn’t wait to get your greedy little pussy around another Virani dick, could you?”
I swallow the sob in my throat, my face burning.
“What the fuck are you crying about?” he snarls, his face half-hidden in shadows. He’s leaned against the wall of the basement and I wish, not for the first time, I hadn’t come here. For dinner. I was an idiot. Again.
Benji is still sitting in the theater seats, the TV on low, his head cocked to the side, arms hooked around the chair. He isn’t looking at us, but even in this enormous room, there’s no way he isn’t hearing us.
“I shouldn’t have come here. This was a mistake.” No matter there’s no way I could’ve resisted his offer, not with those eyes and that mouth and everything between us.
But I shouldn’t have come.
I pick up my purse, on the floor by my side, and make to walk up the stairs leading out of the basement.
He snatches my wrist, yanking me around. My bag falls to the floor and behind him, I see Benji turn in his seat to glance at us.
“I asked you a question, Riley,” Caden hisses, his light blue eyes gleaming in the darkness.
I look down at his hand around my wrist. “You’re hurting me.”
He drops it, and I face him fully.
“What. The. Fuck. Are you crying about?” He grinds out each word with menace and I feel the tears pricking behind my eyes again.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “I need to leave.”
“We both didn’t get to run away, Riley.” He takes a step closer, his shoulder bumping me. “I didn’t get to hide.”
I take a breath. I don’t want to say it...I really don’t. But his body against mine is fucking with my mind and I can’t help it when I say, “I loved him too.”
I whisper the words at first, looking down at the floor.
“What was that?” he asks quietly, his shoulder brushing against mine again. I can smell him, that heady scent that’s just his alone. And me, too. I smellmeon him.
I look up, meet his gaze. “I loved him, too, Caden.”
I see his jaw twitch, his nostrils flare. “Did you love him while you were on me?” He doesn’t raise his voice, but he might as well have screamed it at me.
I shake my head. “Caden, I lost him too—”
“Don’t you dare,” he snaps, eyes wide. He presses a finger into my chest, leans down until we’re brow to brow. “Don’t you dare. He was my brother, and you fucked us both up—”
“I got fucked too!” I scream the words, taking a step back from him, my voice raw. Benji stands up and he crosses his arms as he watches us both. “I got fucked too, Caden.” The words come out choked. I shake my head. “It wasn’t just you—”
“What’re you talking about?” His voice is still cold.
I can’t tell him. It doesn’t matter that it would make me feel better. That he would see the why. It doesn’t matter that his dad is a monster and a fucking piece of shit. What matters is that I can’t hurt Caden again. Not like that. Not even after he’s brought Benji here, clearly to fuck with me.
“I have to go.” I reach for my bag again, but he snatches it away, throws it behind him.
“Caden.” That’s Benji’s voice, a low warning. For some reason, it makes me nervous. Caden is safe. Benji is dangerous.
I glance at him, but his stare is for Caden. Caden, however, ignores him.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck you’re talking about. Who was in that video, Riley?”
I snatch my bag again and this time, Caden pushes me against the wall, one hand tangling in my hair. He yanks my head back, scalp burning where he pulls. And I still feel it. Even now. That rush of want. I don’t let myself move. I don’t trust my own body.
